Melbourne a magnet for interstate migrants

Neil McMahon

Like many a tough life decision, this one involved drawing up a list of pros and cons, with the merits and flaws of Australia's two biggest cities on the table.

Gwen O'Toole and Megan Luscombe had a personal and professional future to plan and had to decide whether it would unfold in Sydney - Ms O'Toole's home - or Melbourne, where Ms Luscombe is an eastern suburbs native. In the end it wasn't a difficult call: Melbourne won hands down and they are now settled and thriving in a Windsor apartment, from which they also run their start-up business.

Moving to Melbourne rather than Sydney made better sense for Gwen O'Toole (left) and Megan Luscombe. Photo: Simon Schluter

With recent figures showing Melbourne is now the most popular destination for interstate migrants - most of them from NSW - the couple are reflective of a trend that, on current patterns, would see Melbourne overtake Sydney as the country's biggest city by mid century.

A multitude of reasons are driving the drift, but for Ms O'Toole and Ms Luscombe it largely came down to the financial benefits - the southern capital simply won out as a cheaper and more efficient place to live and work when they decided to turn their long-distance relationship into something more settled.

''We were both doing the back and forth as much as we could. Then we'd talked about launching a business for ages and realised if we were going to do it we needed to work out where it was going to make the most sense, where it was going to be cheapest,'' says Ms O'Toole. ''And Melbourne just ticked all the boxes.''

Her partner adds: ''The cons just kept stacking up. The cost was substantially more. Rents. Business costs. Melbourne won hands down. The rent alone in Sydney was going to cost us $700 to $900 a week. Here, we're paying half that.''

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According to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 6900 Australians moved to Victoria in the year to September, more than moved to any other state, with Queensland losing its traditional spot atop the migration ladder. More than half came from NSW.

Denise Carlton, director of demography at the bureau, says: ''This is the highest net interstate migration gain for the state in over 30 years.''

The ABS says Sydney and Melbourne each grew by almost 1.7 million in the past 40 years. But Melbourne's higher growth rate - 62 per cent versus 54 - reflects stronger recent growth, which will make Melbourne the biggest capital by 2053 if it is maintained.

Ms O'Toole, an American who had lived in Sydney for 12 years before moving south in August, recites a list of shortcomings that made the decision easy: public transport, exorbitant rents, traffic gridlock. Sydney friends, she says, are envious of her move and some openly ponder doing the same.

''I've had a few friends talk about moving - they comment on how laid-back Melbourne is, how easy it is to get around, the cheaper rents.'' Then there is the lively reinvention of Melbourne's CBD, which makes it an appealing, vibrant place around the clock compared with the harbour capital. ''You generally wouldn't go out in the city on a Saturday night. Here it's different.''

Dean, a 46-year-old lawyer who was raised in Melbourne and recently returned to live in the city after 15 years in Sydney, concurs that cost and efficiency are key driving forces. ''Melbourne has a resurgent vitality and newness to it,'' he says. ''By comparison, be it crumbling transport infrastructure, traffic, parking problems and unsustainably high house prices … it's an uphill battle with headwinds living in Sydney.''

Which raised the one inevitable shortcoming down south.

''The only thing I really do sometimes miss is the weather,'' Ms O'Toole says. ''I first arrived in the first week of August and I was thinking, 'I don't know if I can do this.' I thought, 'I'm really going to miss the sunshine.' But now I've had a summer here it's fine.''